Someone said that love never ends except with death. No, I don't buy that.

I was married before. We were in love. After four years of marriage, I got pregnant. That pregnancy was nearly the death of me, and I spent the last portion of it in the hospital. Mention was made of a heart lung machine to keep my body alive for the baby, but fortunately it never got quite that bad.

My then husband did not cope well with this crisis. He ended up spending time with another woman as his coping mechanism, rather than sitting with me in the hospital. I found out because I brought home a baby, and he brought home an STD (thankfully one treatable with antibiotics).

I struggled to keep the marriage together for a number of years after that, but in the end we divorced. It is difficult to rebuild trust once shattered, and different people deal with crises in different ways - some healthy, some unhealthy. Love without trust can die.

Lasting love requires the commitment of two people. It isn't all a rose garden. Some love survives because both people in the relationship are strong enough to pull through anything together, and to be there for each other through the worst of times. Love is easy during the good times, it is tested (as are the people themselves) during the hard times.

Cowgirl